Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup heavy cream (I added a bit more, probably 1/4 cup more)
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest, plus 1/4 cup fresh orange juice (FRESH FRESH FRESH!!!)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup (i stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 vanilla beans, halved length-wise, seeds scraped and reserved
2 large eggs
Swiss Meringue Buttercream:
5 large egg whites
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, room temperature (yes... an entire pound of butter makes the fluffiest lightest buttercream frosting I've ever enjoyed... I don't get it either)
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Candied Orange Slices:
2 small navel oranges
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
INGREDIENT NOTE ABOUT CANDIED ORANGES: I doubled the water and sugar and put the oranges in a wider pot. The doubling of these ingredients allowed me to candy more slices at a time, and since they took forever, I recommend doing that.
So yes. It's a lot of ingredients, a lot of elements to one cupcake, and A WHOLE LOT OF BUTTER, but in the end, they look super fancy and are quite tasty. Honestly, the most difficult part of this whole endeavor, was the buttercream frosting. It takes a lot of time beating in the mixer before it begins to look fluffy and, well, like frosting. I must admit I got really frustrated with that stinking buttercream. But boy, did it rock on those cupcakes. Martha wanted me to level off the tops of each cupcake so that the orange can lay flat on the top of it but I said HELLS TO THE NO to that. I'm not about to spend all day making cupcakes just to cut half of it away. So my solution to all of this was simple. First I spread a thin layer of frosting on the top of the cupcake, just to give my piping a base. Then I piped little beads over top of the whole cupcakes, like so:
2 comments:
Looks yummy...
Yikes! This is for idiots? But they look gorgeous and I bet they tast great. I saw your post on Sienna's "Hon What's for Dinner" and I think I'll follow you now....hope you'll follow me too? It's good to make new friends, right?
- Haupi
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